Your absence is a ragged edge to my heart
by pencilsinabag
Summary: Three months she'd spent, going out to clubs and drowning heartbreak in beer and in men. Always men, never allowing herself the possibility of looking at any woman who looked the least bit like Helena.


(**A/N**: This pre-supposes that Myka has _not _gone back to the Warehouse. ...And that she totally went on a downward spiral after Helena. Myka's parents got to see the college years they didn't see when she _was _in college. Also, I have absolutely _no _idea why my mind went straight to baby, unless it's because there are so many babies around me, that I am just inundated. Also, this got away from me.)

Done for a prompt on LJ; _A year and a half later, Myka ran into H.G. in the least imaginable place she would have expected. _As stated earlier...this got away from me. Do not own anything, if I did...well. Let's just say Helena would not be gone, and there would have been more Myka/Helena scenes. Yeah.

* * *

In her arms, Helena squirmed and whined. Myka stroked her soft baby hair, already curling like her mama's and holds her closer. She'd been an accident, but a good one. Tiny Helena Marie, come into the world with her eyes scrunched up and wailing, _she has good lungs, _and who Myka had carried in her for nine months, loving and resenting her at the same time.

Three months she'd spent, going out to clubs and drowning heartbreak in beer and in men. Always men, never allowing herself the possibility of looking at any woman who looked the least bit like Helena. (H.G, not Helena anymore; that was a name for her daughter, not for the one who broke her in a way that Sam couldn't.)

Myka holds her close, breathing in her daughter's sweet baby smell, and walks down the aisles of the baby store. _Pampers, formula..._and who knew what else; she just needed to get out of her parents' house, with their doting hands on her baby and wary eyes on her. She'd never been through this in college, or high school, and seeing them struggling with an unmarried daughter with their granddaughter was...difficult. She didn't try to be a burden, but for those first few months, she was such a mess. Coming home, reeking of alcohol, vomit and sex besides, sometimes she looks back and wonders how they didn't have an aneurysm.

Finding out she was pregnant was a surprise, of course, but probably the only one that could have knocked sense into her. All the alcohol and the sex, (not puritanical anymore, Pete) sometimes she wonders if she wasn't a bit suicidal—after all, how many times had she woken up in a pile of her own vomit, sore and aching all over, reeking of sweat and beer, and wished she was dead, that maybe not feeling at all was far better than the ever-present ache in her heart.

Those first few months were the worst.

And then, one night, a faulty condom (not that she would have notice at the time, trying to feel—anything) and a couple months later spent puking her guts out, and her little Helena safe inside her belly, not knowing that her mama was vacillating between keeping her or purging her from her body. In the end, of course, Helena came into the world, screaming while Myka gasped and sobbed, half overjoyed and half feeling that hole in her heart with such acuity, she thought she'd never recover. Helena was a balm to that, smoothing away the ragged edges until Myka didn't have that pain on her mind all the time, until she could feel happy holding her daughter close and smile and not think of her namesake.

No one but Myka calls Helena, Helena. Her parents call her Marie, and whenever she runs into old acquaintances, (always so surprised to see perfect Myka with a baby in her arms and no ring on her finger) she's Marie.

Myka stayed in the aisle, looking at the brand names without seeing, mindlessly humming underneath her breath, feeling happier then she has for a long time, hoisting Helena up on her shoulder, keeping a careful eye on the tiny purple elephant that Helena could not sleep without. (She'd dropped it the day before, and Myka hadn't noticed until they were almost to her car and they had to go back and look for it because Helena would not lay down for her nap unless she had a firm grasp on her elephant's purple ear.)

Helena let out a happy coo, hands reaching to something behind Myka, who realized that despite her watching, the damned elephant managed to slip and fall. Turning around, she faced a hand holding the elephant, its holder's eyes wide and so so familiar, pale lips parted in surprise, and Myka's first instinct was to run.

Helena—H.G—stood, holding the purple elephant, something unreadable in her dark eyes, want and regret, and something nearly possessive whirling with love until Myka's head spun with sorrow.

She gripped Helena closer, reaching to grab the elephant from H.G's hand. Helena did not speak, her lovely face so surprised, but she grasped Myka's fingers as she went to take the toy.

"Myka" she breathed, eyes flickering to Helena, puzzled, "Myka."

A muscle in Myka's jaw jumped, "H.G" she murmured coolly, desperately trying to ignore the warmth of H.G's hands, or the way her hands shook. There was that confused look to H.G's face, puzzled, and trying to find the answer, looking at Helena. Her eyes flickered back to Myka.

"Yours, I presume?"

"Yeah. Yeah, of course."

H.G let Myka's hand go, and Myka snatched her hand and the toy back, finding it hard to breathe as she showed the toy to Helena, who smiled her gap-toothed smile, prompting Myka to force a smile back.

"What's her name?" _Who's the father, why are you here, far from the Warehouse, where's Pete, why do you have a daughter?_

"Mar—Helena. Her name is Helena." Myka held Helena closer, unwilling to let her baby go and drawing comfort from her small body, probably the only person who could love her unconditionally. That she told H.G her daughter's name, her actual name, doesn't come as a surprise; she'd always thought that if she ever saw H.G again, she'd tell her she had a namesake somewhere. H.G's eyes soften, and she steps closer. Myka can smell her, the smell of leather and magic she knows almost as well as her own scent, and doesn't want to think about days spent lounging in H.G's arms, breathing in that scent and laughing as H.G tickled her stomach, pressing kisses to her neck.

"Can—can I hold her?" H.G's question comes with a pleading look, _please Myka, please_, and no matter how she wants to hate H.G, she can't deny her the chance to hold Helena, who has dark hair and light eyes, reminding Myka of the picture of a little girl in H.G's locket. She offers Helena to H.G, who holds her carefully, watching her baby like she is all she wants. When H.G looks back at Myka, the sheer want in her eyes would break her heart, if not for the fact that she can't think to open it to H.G.

"What are you doing here, H.G?" Without Helena in her arms, Myka is at a loss of what to do with her hands, settling for gripping Helena's toy like a lifeline. She can't look at H.G's eyes, can't stand to see those dark eyes she'd once stared into and told to _kill me, you take my life_; she looks at Helena, smiling in H.G's arms, hand already reaching for a lock of dark hair to tug. H.G notices, of course, and smiles, gently untangling Helena's hand from her hair, carefully admonishing, _no darling, don't do that,_ and Myka feels something in her heart give. "H.G."

H.G looks back up at her, "I was...set free." She doesn't elaborate, doesn't tell Myka that the Regent with her told her she had _one last chance_ and she better not screw it up, and to go look for Myka in a baby store. H.G doesn't tell her how she'd laid in her tiny cot, in her tiny room that last night, wondering how on Earth she was going to convince Myka to come back to the Warehouse, let alone even possibly forgive her. She doesn't mention how her heart lurched at the words Myka and baby store, because what other reason would she have to go into such a store? H.G's freedom depends on bringing Myka back to the Warehouse, on reinstating her as an Agent, but how can she ask that of Myka when she has her own Christina to look after? She'd held out hope, but seeing that baby girl in Myka's arms, with her dark curls and pale eyes, there was no questioning who her mother was.

Bolting the moment the Regents set her free was never an option; she needed to see Myka.

Myka's eyes watch H.G, carefully taking in the woman she—still loved. H.G looked thin—thinner than usual. She was clad in her usual clothes—a shirt, a vest, and those dammed pants that showed off legs that went on forever. It was in her face that her incarceration showed, however; she was pale, too pale, dark circles standing starkly against the skin underneath her eyes, her lips cracked. Myka is not a monster, it's impossible not to feel pity for her, but at the same time...after a year and a half of feeling that aching burning beneath her ribs, seeing something of the same pain in H.G's face made her feel a bit better.

"That doesn't answer my question H.G, what are you doing here?" H.G, not Helena, not Helena ever again. H.G watches Myka, dark eyes unreadable, "Perhaps you could answer a question of mine first? You called me Helena first; now you cannot?" H.G thinks she knows the answer, of course, but all the same, she wants Myka to tell her. She brushes a thumb against baby Helena's cheek, marvelling at the softness of baby's skin.

Myka's eyes follow H.G's thumb, before opening her mouth, "No," she murmurs, "No, I can't. My daughter is Helena." _You were locked up—I was never supposed to see you again; what use would I have to call you Helena, when your name hurts me deep inside? Why call you Helena when it is my daughter who is Helena? _There is power in names, and refusing to call H.G Helena affords Myka precious power she fights to keep.

In calling her daughter Helena, perhaps she can keep some precious power to herself, leftover from heartbreak when H.G broke her with every hit of the trident against the cool packed ground.

H.G's eyes darken, sadness and regret coloring her eyes, and she unconsciously holds Helena closer, breathing in her baby smell. She doesn't want to tell Myka why she's really here.

"The Regents sent me," she murmurs, unwilling to go on, but Myka's face is stony, telling her to go on, "They sent me here to tell you come back darling, to come back to the Warehouse. I'll just—tell them I didn't find you. They don't have to know anything." The Regents, of course, know where Myka is, but they won't go near her, knowing perhaps that she would reject them at the very first glance. That they'd send H.G—whose very existence is the reason for Myka being away from the Warehouse is the first place—shows how they want her back. But where they'd erred was in thinking that H.G valued her freedom over Myka; in this, she is absolute, she will not spirit Myka away from her daughter, will not condemn the tiny Helena a life such as her daughter had, a lonely existence tempered only by visits from her working, doting mother.

H.G forgot that this was 2012, not 1888; here, Myka can bring her tiny daughter with her, can leave her with Leena and go home to the B&B every night, can do her job, and be a mother as well.

Myka watched H.G, saw how she refused to allow her thirst for freedom betray Myka, and smiled, a bit forced, barely tugging at the corners of her lips. H.G swallowed, viewing her smile with a hungry look, wanting her, as they'd been before, happier but also running towards the end result that only H.G knew of, running towards the end of those halcyon days that H.G bought about.

She held her arms out for Helena, which H.G rapidly complied, depositing the smiling child into her mother's arms. The little girl burrowed into her mother's neck, yawning and settling for her nap, gripping the elephant Myka held out for her.

"Tell them, tell them I'll come back. As long as they keep you free—as long as they bring you back," _to me_, she doesn't add, but she imagines the Regents know that already, or else why would they send the one person who could bring her back, "and reinstate you as an agent along with me. So that I can keep an eye one you."

She smiles down at Helena, who is sleeping already, rocked to sleep by the soothing cadence of her voice, "I'd hope that you know that if you mess up again, they'll lock you up for good, a fate worse than death. So don't—don't betray me again."

H.G, who's been fighting the urge since she picked up the toy, walks those scant few steps to Myka and, careful of the dozing baby in her arms, carefully wraps her arms around her, breathing in her Myka smell—leather and magic and baby powder—and smiles, breathing her name against her neck. Myka smiles to herself, moving her arm around Helena's shoulders further to touch H.G's hair, stroking her glossy strands, still beautiful, still perfect, and whispers only "Helena" like a benediction, before stepping apart.

There are changes of course; they are not the same people they were a year and half ago, but maybe they can get back to some semblance of normalcy, dozing in Myka's bed at the B&B, with Helena (the younger) in between them, while Helena (the elder, which, of course, makes Pete giggle like some schoolgirl once he gets over the whole almost destroyed the world thing) faces Myka, smiling and sleeping, thinking that there are no other perfect alternatives to this, save of course having her Christina with her once more, but she's had time to internalize the idea that Christina is safe in heaven, or whatever passes for heaven here.

It was still the oddest place, the least expected place, to find each other again, even if nudged in that direction by the Regents.

* * *

(A year later: Helena, also called Lena to distinguish her from her other mother, still tiny, running around the B&B, dark curls a cape as she runs towards Helena. She laughs and gathers up the little girl in her arms, holding her close.

Little Lena turns light eyes to Myka, who is laughing, running after her. "Lena, what have I told you about running after Pete? Just because he can get into holes doesn't mean you can." Myka slows down, walks close to Helena, brushing her lips absentmindedly against her cheek as she scoops Lena into her arms. She tickles the little girl, who squirms, yelling, "Lemme go mama, I wanna go catch Petey!" chuckling, Myka lets Lena go, and watches her shot across the yard, chasing after Pete the ferret, who she apparently can see even though he's likely curled up in a hole somewhere, shaking scared of her.

Myka turns to Helena, eyes dark and smiling, Helena smirks and leans down, kisses her.

This year is infinitely better then the previous one.)


End file.
